Lot 57: “QUIET PRIDE” Stone Lithograph by Navajo Artist Charles Clifford Signed & Numbered

This Limited Edition Stone Lithograph on Buff Arches Fine Art Paper with Non-Glare Protective Glass entitled “QUIET PRIDE” by Native American Navajo Artist Charles Clifford is Signed & Numbered in Pencil. Beck was born to a prominent Piñon, Arizona, family in 1946, Beck was the second of nine children. His grandfather was a silversmith and his mother, Esther Yellowhair, a weaver. The power of Navajo language and oral tradition shaped Clifford Beck as a child in the late 1940s. He was surrounded by a web of family relationships woven together by language, ceremonies, and art. He recognizes today that artistic expression is embedded in language. As a little boy at his father’s Round Valley store in Piñon, “I was forever awoken to the beauty of Navajo arts and crafts, our Navajo artistry.” He also observed his father’s discerning eye for quality turquoise stones and talent for business transactions. At home, he was surrounded by his parents’ beautiful collection of pawn jewelry and his mother’s weavings.

Stone Lithograph on buff Arches Fine Art Paper

Excellent

Beck’s work ranges from small, impressionistic pastel sketches to monumental oils. He enjoys using the pastel medium to produces effects of line, tone, and color simultaneously. With it he can draw and also make thick, painterly strokes. Pastel–pure pigment in stick form — creates rich, luminous colors. He favors earth tones touched with blazes of turquoise, scarlet, and fuchsia. Like Degas, Beck is challenged to use the medium in diverse ways, directly or mixed with water, turpentine, oil, or acrylics.